by Erin Hahn
“Hey, you dreamed up the thing. I just moved it along.”
“We make a decent team,” she says, nudging my shoulder.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. I want to say something smooth like, “We should team up more often. Like, on Friday night. On a date. Where we make out.” But then I remember I’m not smooth, and what if I am reading this all wrong and she meant team only as a super-platonic team metaphor and then I’ll feel like an idiot, so instead I say, “I guess we do.”
“Speaking of, I heard you might be coming to class to observe us dancing again this week for the showcase.” Vada frowns, wrinkling up her nose so her freckles scrunch together.
“We are. But if you’d rather I not come, I don’t have to. I have plenty of material.”
“Material?” she asks lightly, her freckles spreading.
“You know what I mean.”
She nods. “It’s not that I don’t want you to watch, obviously, but dance class is sort of sacred to me. It’s where I go to work out my issues.”
“Fair.”
“Are you sure?” she checks.
“Absolutely.”
“I like you, Luke.”
I bite my tongue, chasing away a thousand responses before settling on a casual, “Likewise, Vada.”
14
VADA
LUKE
YouTube: Nirvana “Heart-Shaped Box”
VADA
Ugh. We’re fighting.
LUKE
What? Why? You can’t censor me.
VADA
Kurt Cobain? Really? Where’s the creativity?
LUKE
Oh, so sending a link for a song that’s over twenty-five years old is “lacking creativity”?
VADA
Nirvana is the pits, man. (With the exception of David Grohl, OBVIOUSLY.)
LUKE
Cobain was the pits. Nirvana holds up.
VADA
YouTube: Pearl Jam “Better Man”
LUKE
Pearl Jam is just as old and grungy, Vada.
VADA
Yet Eddie Vedder is still kicking it.
LUKE
Ah. So, that’s your issue.
VADA
Maybe.
LUKE
Interesting.
VADA
I can feel you psychoanalyzing me from across the room, Greenly.
LUKE
So, sit still, ffs. When you move around, you mess with my brain wave-reader.
VADA
Hilarious.
LUKE
Gotta go. Michigan leading at halftime means a whole lot of “shots all around” are about to happen.
VADA
YouTube: Bastille “World Gone Mad”
LUKE
…
LUKE
…
LUKE
Well played.
* * *
One of the very best perks of my job is when Phil is all, “Hey Vada, there’s this new band named (Not) Warren coming to town, and you need to check them out,” and he sends me for free.
And I get to write about it as if anyone cares what I think.
But according to the Behind the Music stats, a few thousand people do care. It’s mind-blowing.
Tonight, he sent Luke with me. I’m very, very chill about this, obviously. I had kind of hoped by working with Luke, and, by default, texting him, I would decide he was weird. That happens, you know? Like, you could low-key crush on a guy from afar because he has a hot accent and ruddy cheeks, but you get to know him and he doesn’t even know who the Smiths are or hasn’t heard of Amy Shark and then, magically, you couldn’t care less about how he looks like Christmas morning after carrying in a box of limes from the shed out behind the bar you both work at.
But Luke does know who the Smiths are and even sent me a link to “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” the other night, causing me to swoon on the spot, startling Meg, who afterward kept checking me for a fever.
And he’s so damn likable. Ridiculously considerate and smart and always humming under his breath and, well, the Christmas cheeks thing and … I’m sunk.
(I haven’t asked him about Amy Shark. He’s probably president of her fan club, and I’d have to straight-up propose to him, and we’re too young for that nonsense.) (Also, college.)
So, here we are. So close to each other we’re rubbing elbows, and I can somehow feel his body heat through the sleeve of my hoodie, and he smells like Tide PODS.
To the band’s credit, they are killer. So much so that I hardly notice the delicious way my coworker smells. We’re in that weird fake-ending spot right before the band comes back on for an encore, and I wonder idly whose idea this whole pretense was in the first place? Like, “We’re all done, folks. Have a good night!” and three and a half minutes later, “Just kidding, we thought of two more original songs and a super-long cover to play for you guys, so thank God we didn’t turn all the lights back on.”
“I wonder who the first band was to do the delayed encore?” Luke asks, his voice slightly raised over the murmur of the crowd. “It’s not like we don’t all expect it now.”
Jesus Harold Christ.
He looks at me; his eyes practically glow in the dim blue light of the stage. “Like, what are they doing back there? Counting to one hundred four times?”
“Microwaving a Hot Pocket?” I suggest.
“Retying all their shoes, double knotted?”
“Checking their Instagram feeds.”
“Checking your review blog, more like,” he says, and I feel my face grow hot.
“I doubt they even know,” I say.
He holds a fake mic to my face. “Ms. Carsewell, just how many eye-closers did tonight’s performance warrant?”
I’m tempted to bite his hand. To taste it or fend him off, I can’t tell.
“Honestly, at least three. They were excellent.”
He nods, pulling his hand back and stuffing it in his pocket. “They were really good. And history has shown the best is still to come,” he says as the stage lights come on once more and the crowd roars its approval.
The lead singer plucks at his electric guitar as the secondary vocalist takes center stage. She has an incredible indie Meg Myers sound going for her, and I almost wonder if she’d be better served as the main vocalist.
She could pull it off, if this pop-y electronic track is any indication. She drapes over the mic sensually, and I watch the guitarist watch her.
“Wonder if they’re sexing it up?” Luke’s breath is in my ear, and I jump. “Sorry!” he says.
My eyes are wide. “I was thinking the same thing!”
After that, I’m totally distracted. If they aren’t sleeping together, they ooze chemistry. Sex appeal can boost a band from great sound to great show.
It can also disintegrate a band faster than Spider-Man facing Thanos.
For their final song, they do a duet, during which I forget my own name or where I am or what day it is. The lyrics are soft and achingly powerful. I wish I had written them. I haven’t ever been in love, but I feel it in the song and their voices, and it fucking sucks to be in love. My heart is quiet, and my breath stops in my lungs. I’m so still that I can feel my bones creak when I come to life once more. That is the best fucking feeling in the world. The lights come on, and my throat hurts from screaming and my hands itch from clapping, and Luke turns to me, brushing a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
“Five eye-closers,” he says. “Easily.”
“Holy shit,” I reply. “What just happened?”
“I think we saw history being made.”
We stare at each other, the room erupting around us, but don’t move. I’m afraid to. At last I close my eyes, taking a picture in my mind.
I want to live in this moment forever, and maybe I’d like it okay if Luke were here, too.
15
LUKE
The night after I see that band with Vada, I final
ly have the house to myself. My parents went to see the latest Marvel movie, and Cullen is out to dinner, and it’s awesome. I’m a high-functioning introvert in a houseful of raging extroverts.
I’ve pulled my keyboard out of my closet and set it on its stand. After switching it on, it glows at the touch as though it’s been waiting for me. I lightly press a few of the keys, caressing them, and immediately feel stupid. It’s only a cheap keyboard. Get your shit together, Luke.
Pulling aside my curtains, I reassure myself the driveway is empty before returning to sit at the keys. I play a melody that’s been itching to get out. Once. Twice. Changing it a little and humming under my breath. Changing it again. Then I close my eyes and let go.
I’ve had the song in my head for a while, but it wasn’t until that class, and then at the silent disco—until I saw the way Vada moved, her shape backlit by the streaming, pulsing lights—that everything clicked into place.
I can’t get the picture out of my brain.
(I suspect I will die with it on my eyelids.)
Something inside of me came alive that first day in the studio, and it’s been growing and stretching free ever since. Every time I happen across Vada in the hallway at school. Every shift we work together, when she laughs at my inane jokes. Every song she sends, revealing tiny pieces of her that I’m not sure anyone else gets to see.
I hadn’t realized how much she’d gotten to me until the words began pouring out, my stomach clenching more and more with each line. This can’t be good. This is exactly why I’ve been okay with reading blogs and friendly smiles from a safe distance. This, whatever it is inside of me, is—is a lot.
That’s the thing about music; it’s the absolute maddening truth. It’s what makes the good songs so powerful. The more agonizing the truth, the better. I’m not ready to bare my soul like that. You can be damn sure this song isn’t going into the showcase. I scratch out a line, frustrated. I need something more casual … generic …
“Who’re you singing about?”
I jump with a crash of the keys, stumbling off the back of my stool.
“Fuck me, Cullen, don’t you knock?”
Cullen huffs out a laugh, bouncing once on my bed. “I did. You were lost in the moment, so I let myself in.”
“How long have you been sitting there?”
He shrugs. “Long enough.”
It’s full-on dark out. I glance at my watch. Nine thirty. I’ve been playing for two hours.
“So, who were you singing about?”
I rub at my neck, feeling how hot it is. “No one. It was just a song.”
“That you wrote.”
“Yeah, well. It’s been a while. Wanted to see if I still could.”
“That was really excellent, Luke. Why’d you give it up?”
I glare at him, incredulous. “You know why.”
He waves the thought away like a gnat. “That was before the podcast. Loads of people listen to you every single week.”
“Not live.”
“Everyone’s a little shy in front of crowds. You’d get used to it.”
“I like my privacy, thanks. I’m not like you guys.”
Cullen’s expression darkens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
My eyes dart around, grasping for a way to make him understand. “You and Dad and Mum, you’re all brilliant at commanding a crowd. You live for the attention. I don’t want anything to do with it. On the podcast, I can pretend it’s you and me talking. I don’t see the others. They aren’t real to me. I don’t want to sing for crowds. I don’t want anyone trying to guess who I’m singing about or picking the lyrics apart. It’s not for them.”
“But it is for someone,” he insists.
I shake my head.
“Bollocks. Fine. You’re too afraid to live up to your potential or whatever. Classic Luke. But you’re cheating whoever that was about from hearing it.”
I exhale sharply, dropping into my desk chair. “How d’you even know it was about anyone? Why can’t it be about no one?”
He pauses like he wants to say something else and has reconsidered, instead saying, “Because those weren’t imaginary feelings. That was some deep shit, and it was really good, Luke. And whoever she is”—he emphasizes the words—“she deserves to know someone feels that way about her.”
* * *
“Luke! I didn’t expect to see you tonight.” Phil slides behind the bar to where I’m leaning on a counter, my head bobbing to the low thrum of music playing over the speakers. It’s early yet, but the game-night crowd should be making its way in soon. It’s March Madness season, after all.
“Ben asked if I wouldn’t mind filling in. He had a date.”
Phil’s grizzled cheek twitches under his wire frames. “Ah yes. I hear you’re to blame for that.”
I lift a shoulder. “Perhaps. I was looking for more hours.”
“Well, you got ’em.” Phil pulls out a glass, shovels in enough ice to hit the rim, and fills in the spaces with iced tea. “How are you liking things so far?”
“I love it,” I say honestly. “It feels homey.”
Phil nods as if I didn’t just compare his bar to a log cabin in the woods.
“I mean,” I try again, “I’m comfortable.”
“There are two kinds of people in the world,” Phil says, taking a pull from his tea. “The kind who listen to music and the kind who live inside it. The kind who listen to it come to my bar, have a drink or five, and leave with a friend. The kind who live in it never really leave.”
“Well, I’m only on until ten,” I joke.
“And I’ll probably kick you out before then. It’s a school night.” Phil slips his drink onto a storage shelf under the counter and pulls a rag out of the bleach bucket to wipe down the bar top. I should be the one doing that, but he waves me off before I can protest. “But that’s not what I mean. Even when you walk out of here, finish school, drive across the country for college or whatever, you’ll carry the music with you. It’s in your bloodstream. I can tell.”
I nod because he’s right. I don’t know how, but he is.
“So, tell me something. How’d Charlie Greenly’s son end up here? I thought your dad was overseas making a fortune producing.”
“Eh,” I say, turning the hard liquor bottles so the labels face outward. “He was, but he … lost interest? I don’t know. Mum was offered a position at U of M, and they decided to give her dreams a shot for a bit. They’re ridiculously in love. He sold off his portion of the label and moved here, barely batting an eye.”
“Taking their twin sons with,” he concludes for me.
“Well, they could hardly leave us behind. It was fine, though. We were always moving around as kids.”
“You interested in following in your dad’s footsteps?”
“Not really, no.”
“Not a punk fan?”
“More like a not-performing fan.”
Phil points to a photo behind the bar. “Me neither. I hid behind my drums, but when the rest of the band branched out, I decided behind the bar was more to my liking.”
“I didn’t know you played.”
“And sang, believe it or not. We were more Alkaline Trio to your dad’s Bad Apples, but we did all right for a garage band.”
I stare at the photo, taking in an action shot of a younger, thinner, hairier Phil behind a gleaming drum kit with the name Loud Lizard emblazoned on the front. “You were the original Phil Collins, dual singer and drummer,” I say.
“Eh, Phil Collins is the original Phil Collins, but I did all right.”
“Where’s the rest of your band now?”
“Insurance agent, high school teacher, mortician.”
“You’re not serious.”
Phil grins. “Completely.”
“You’re the only one who stuck with music? That’s sort of depressing.”
“Depends how you look at it. Objectively, they’re making more money. Well, not the teacher, but that’s
not his fault.”
“Music is a fickle arsehole,” I say without thinking.
Phil laughs. “Indeed. Though it served Charlie well. I’m glad. Did he ever tell you he played here? Had to be around ’92. Bad Apples were a fine group of randy gents.” I grimace at the mere picture of my father as “randy,” and Phil whoops. “You look like him, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Not so much your brother,” he says. “He must take after your mom?”
“He got all the Greek.”
“Can he sing, too?”
“How’d you know I sang?” I ask, because that’s what he’s really asking.
“You hum to yourself.” He taps his ear. “It’s a gift.”
I shake my head. “Nah, he wishes. It’d be better if he did. It’s wasted on me.”
“Says who?”
“Guess.” I sound sullen, and I bite my tongue before I can say more.
Phil lets out a breath, his eyes skimming over the still-quiet bar. I move to the dishwasher and start to empty it in preparation, careful to not meet his eye.
“There’s more to music than singing, you know.”
“I like to write,” I say.
Phil helps me with the dishes, removing one that’s still covered in condensation and drying it with a clean rag.
“Do you play anything?”
“Piano.”
“You any good?”
I shrug.
“So, yes. Is this a stage fright thing or a general wish to play behind the scenes?”
“The second one.”
“Fair enough. And Charlie doesn’t love it?”
“Hates it.”
He leans forward on his forearms. “Sure he does. It’s hard to understand when you live for the crowds, and Charlie Greenly sure as hell worked a crowd in his day. Have you ever seen it?” he asks suddenly.
“Footage of my dad? Not in years, actually. Though I’ve seen him in the kitchen, so I can imagine.”
Phil is already shaking his head. “Nah. It’s not the same, I guarantee it. He was like a fucking firecracker up there. I thought for sure he was on speed, but he said he avoided the hard stuff.”
I turn red. “He says heroin messes with your pecker.”
Phil barks out a laugh. “I’m sure I have footage somewhere. I’ll dig around for it. It’s worth watching.”